The firm has been entrusted with the responsibility of guarding a very sensitive place that is a nuclear plant and its ground. To effectively and successfully guard this plant, two departments namely security planers and security officers have been assigned this function. While carrying out its mandate of guarding the plant there are problems that are threatening effectiveness of offering professional services at the plant.The personnel problems that have been diagnosed are lack of good working relations between the two departments and the low of the workers in the in the organization.
In addition to above problems the firm is also experiencing budgetary constraints that restrains it form boosting morale through raising salaries apart from small cost of living adjustments. To improve the working relation of the two conflicting departments, the role, function and importance of each department need to be understood. For an organization, planning is the most basic important involved in managing.The overall strategic plan of any organization is normally carried at the headquarters and it involves making choices on the use of scarce resources, committing those resources and preparing a time plan that is specific time limit within which the work must be completed. Without proper planning an organization cannot reasonably exercise control in regard to the desired course of action. The security planners at the nuclear plants are involved with operational and tactical planning to ensure that guarding of the plant is going on as per the overall plan.
The security guards work is to implement what the security planners recommend.That is the output of the security planners is the input of the security officers. This arrangement does not appear to be working and therefore has a serious potential impact in regarding the guarding of this nuclear plant. The firm has a responsibility of guarding a very sensitive installation that is a nuclear plant. The purpose of building a nuclear plant is to produce energy. In a nuclear plant a form of energy is produced by an atomic reaction, capable of producing an alternative source of electrical power to that supplied by coal, gas or oil (The Free Dictionary by Farlex2008).A nuclear plant has a nuclear reactor that produces and controls the release of energy from the atoms of certain elements. .
In a nuclear power reactor (Nuclear Power Reactor, 2008), the energy released is used as heat to make steam to generate electricity. The main function of a nuclear plant is to produce energy however nuclear plants installations are classified very sensitive places. A nuclear plant depends on the heat that occurs during nuclear fission that is the splitting of one atom into two (Marshall 2000).
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In the process of splitting of an atom an incredible amount of heat and radiation are released.The heat that is released is used to make steam that generates electricity. However the radiation emitted from this process could cause health problems when human beings and indeed any other living thing are exposed to a high and uncontrolled dosage of radiation.
Uncontrolled long exposure to radiation can cause diseases such as cancer, cause deformities to limbs of newly born babies and animals in addition to causing other ailments. When the production of energy is done, what is left is nuclear waste which is highly toxic as it contains as it contains radio active substance.This waste must be properly guarded and disposed off in such away that it is not accessible to unauthorized people. Proper guarding of the plant is not only a concern of the owners of the plant but also the people living near the plant, the country where it is situated and the international community as a whole.
The implications of failure to properly guard the nuclear plant are: • Unauthorized access to this facility by visitors will likely expose them to radiation which is dangerous to their health. Lack of adequate security to the plant may facilitate the acquisition of the nuclear waste by terrorists who will use it to make dirt bombs that they will detonate and kill innocent people. • Terrorists may also dump this waste at water sources thereby exposing and endangering lives of the consumers of that contaminated water.
• Upon accessing the plant terrorists may bombs that they will detonate and cause an explosion with devastating consequences to the surrounding community. Consumption of animal products from that affected area shall also be harmful to human beings.In view of the above it is important that the personnel issues that have been observed in this plant, namely conflict between the security planners and the security officers and low morale be addressed urgently to avert possible catastrophe. The conflict between the two groups may be as a result of intergroup competition or the low morale or both.
Intergroup competition leads to the development of conflicting goals, and the breakdown of intergroup communication and cooperation (Cole 2003). Webster dictionary (1983), defines conflict as a sharp disagreement or opposition of interest or ideas.When this conflict occurs in a work place it can reduce morale, lower productivity, increase absenteeism, reduce achievement attitudes and cause large-scale confrontations that can lead to serious and violent crimes. Prudent management particularly which has been given the responsibility of guarding a nuclear plant must avoid the consequences of work place conflict. To address this problem, management will apply conflict resolution at work place and simultaneously find ways to motivate workers in order to improve morale . The following measures need to be undertaken.Management will meet the two groups separately in order to get to the genesis of the conflict that led to the breakdown of the communication between the groups.
It is important to listen and understand why each group has no regard to the other including disregard to the other group’s and responsibilities. During the meeting management will also find out the cause of low morale which appears to affect both groups. It will be important to establish whether the cause of low morale is as a result of the conflict or lack of motivation due to inadequate budgetary allocation to raise the salary of the workers.The meeting with that will initially consist of representatives from the two groups will assist management to determine the action to be undertaken to resolve the conflict. To solve this conflict it necessitates undertaking team building as follows (Cole 2003) • Setting up clear objectives and agreed goals for both groups • Cultivate a working environment that encourages openness and confrontation • The two groups to be encouraged to support and trust each other.
• Develop sound communication procedures at the place. • Have regular review in regard to the group and individual requirements Ensure that there are always sound intergroup relations.Morale is low and it affects both groups. This might have been occasioned by the conflict that could be addressed through the above stated interventions. However, low morale could also be as a result of many other factors among them adequate payment. Payment is a form of compensation a worker gets for the services rendered to an organization. If it is perceived to be inadequate then the employee’s commitment and productivity goes down and in the process the organization suffers.To improve morale, an employee ought to be motivated and a working motivation is as follows: Motivation’ is the term used to describe those processes, both instinctive and rational, by which people seek to satisfy the basic drives, perceived needs and personal goals, which trigger human behavior.
(Cole, 1995) The employees guarding the nuclear plant, no doubt, need to be highly motivated to avoid a disaster. A person who is not motivated tends not to take his work seriously with a possibility of being tempted to allow access to the plant by unauthorized people who might harm the operations of the plant or take away the nuclear waste which can be used to injure living things.With a little inducement this is absolutely possible with a person who is demoralized. Accordingly, management has to improve the morale of its employees by motivating them. There is need for group as well as individual motivation. Group motivation will entail setting up of performance standards, with adequate and timely results, while the individual wishes are to feel satisfied with the membership of the group (Cole, 2003). When these are absent motivation will tend to be low and hence morale.
